According to a report from the British Computer Society, it will take the UK 283 years before women are equally represented in IT.
After adding up some numbers from 2005 to 2022, BCS calculated it would take nearly three centuries for the representation of women in the IT workforce – currently 20 per cent – to reach the average representation across the whole UK workforce, currently at 48 per cent.
The report found that progress towards the gender norm was stalling in IT jobs. Between 2018 and 2021, the proportion of women tech workers rose from 16 per cent to 20 per cent. But the same in 2022 remained the same.
BCS managing director for education and public benefit Julia Adamson said: “More women and girls need the opportunity to take up great careers in a tech industry that’s shaping the world. A massive talent pool and creativity are being overlooked when it could benefit employers and the economy. There must be a radical rethink of how we get more women and girls into tech careers, and a more inclusive tech culture is ethically and morally the right thing to do.”
“Having greater diversity means that what is produced is more relevant to, and representative of, society at large. This is crucial for, for instance, the use of AI in medicine or finance. The fact that 94 per cent of girls and 79 per cent of boys drop computing at age 14 is a huge alarm bell we must not ignore; the subject should have a broader digital curriculum relevant to all young people,” she added.
BCS Women co-chair Jo Stansfield said more women are believed to have joined the industry during the pandemic due to “increased flexibility, such as working from home.”
“This meant they could balance careers with other responsibilities, such as caring for children or elderly relatives – tasks which still fall disproportionately on women. What’s needed is the development of inclusive workplace policies and practices to retain our workforce and to keep building on it,” Stansfield added.
In terms of pay, the median hourly earnings for female IT specialists in 2022 was £22 per hour, eight per cent less than that recorded for males working in IT positions.
However, women were more represented in some senior IT roles than junior ones. For example, in IT director roles, their representation is 22 per cent, while in programmer or dev jobs, the ratio of women was 15 per cent.
Women were more likely to have a degree or equivalent than their male counterparts in IT jobs. Sixty-nine per cent of women working in IT have a degree, compared to 64 per cent of men. Men, however, are more likely to have an IT degree.
